In the following excerpt, Carson surveys Adams's body of work, which she characterizes as born out of his politically conservative background.

Brooks Adams generally appears in the history of American thought as Henry Adams's cranky younger brother, an eccentric misanthrope who reputedly began each day "by singing a song of his own invention, which consisted entirely of three repeated words: "God damn it! God damn it! God damn it!' In a less apocryphal vein is the recognition that The Education of Henry Adams was fertilized by Brooks Adams's audacious attempt to forge theoretical order from material and spiritual chaos.1 For Henry Adams, the century ended on a note of Darwininduced despair. In contrast, Brooks Adams's personal Odyssey in the decade of 1893 to 1903 traced an arc from apocalyptic despair to progressive optimism...